Memories of the ‘Brooklands’ Racing Scene in the 30s
Serial 4

Edited extracts by MartinStubbs from the unpublished autobiography of Dacre Stubbs

R.G.J. Nash of the Frazer-Nash car fame, kindly sponsored my membership of the B.A.R.C. (Brooklands Automobile Racing Club), he maintained what he called his Horseless Carriage Museum, in which one found specimens of many early racing machines. I recall a 1907 Peugeot racer, a 1900 Daimler, an ancient Fiat, a Napier of immense proportions and naturally one or two G.N. cars. Nash was an extraordinary likeable personality, the brother of Capt. Archie Frazer Nash, the creator of the renowned Frazer-Nash cars which first appeared around 1925. I used to spend a long time talking with R.G.J. about cars, music and literature whilst enjoying a ‘brew up’, and then we would adjourn nearby to the establishment of J. Granville Grenfell, who with his wife Mini ran a design and automobile workshop. A place overcrowded with cars, tools and parts, Lancias, Lagondas, Frazer- Nashes, my own Bentley and Aston Martin. Superchargers seemed to be Granville’s speciality and was spending a great deal of time supercharging one of the new Lagonda ‘Rapier’ models. Here at midday while partaking of bowls of Mini’s sustaining soup, the shed became even more crowded with interesting personalities from around the area, conversations ranged from Mozart or Benny Goodman to acceptable vane clearances in Rootes superchargers, fuel mixtures, road-holding characteristics and so forth.

You might be forgiven for thinking that no work was done by the Brooklands fraternity, but there reigned an atmosphere of friendly enthusiasm. Whatever the job it had to be done to perfection, and after a break for serious or ribald talk the work continued until midnight or exhaustion set in, or the job was finished. I recall helping Grenfell to put an engine back in an ERA owned by Arthur Dobson at between one and two o’clock in the morning. He never seemed to employ anybody, everything was done in an atmosphere of enthusiastic comradeship.

I was grateful for becoming a friend of Grenfell’s, and all the time I was at Brooklands which extended up to three seasons, their worshop was my headquarters where my cars and I were always welcome. Apart from the cost of some materials, no money ever changed hands nor was any account given for the many hours spent working on one or the other cars. These included the Aston Martin, a 3-litre and 4.1/2-litre Bentley, a front wheel drive Alvis and my 8th Series Lancia Lambda, but not all at the same time. Grenfell was particularly interested in the Aston which he considered to be aesthetically perfect in design, although rather too heavy and slow, consequently useless on the outer circuit track and little better for sprint and hill-climbs, without considerable modification, but he said it was perfect for long distance road racing. Nevertheless he would tune the twin SU carburetors and timing to perfection, then with his stop watch check my lap times which varied between 77.2 and 79.0mph. Somewhat disappointing I thought when the speedometer was peaking at 108mph on Railway Straight. We were using a fuel mixture of 10 parts Discol plus 3 parts Benzol to suit the high compression ratio of 9.5 to 1 with Champion R2 plugs.  Celow:
Granville Grenfell at the wheel of his advanced 500 which he designed and built in his crowded workshop. Photo: Courtesy of Marques & Men Website